Four local wines received international accolades this week.
Northern Lights Estate Winery brought its product to San Francisco for the 2023 Sommelier’s Choice Awards, which attended by wineries from all over the world.
Four of their wines won medals – Heritage Haskap and Mirtillo won silver, Seduction and Cranberry won bronze.
Medal rankings are based on a points system, not a head-to-head wine-to-wine ranking.
There are four tiers of recognition a wine can receive at the awards:
Double Gold – 96 points and above
Gold – 90-95 points
Silver – 80-89 points
Bronze – 70-79 points
“We have never entered an international wine competition before,” Doug Bell, the owner of Northern Lights told My PG Now.
Most of the wines at the competition were more traditional grape wines, which he said is the norm for international competitions.
This is part of the reason that Northern Lights – a (grape-less) fruit winery – had not submitted their wines internationally before.
“At this competition, we exceeded all expectations,” he said. “We were the top fruit wine rated at the competition and took home a huge haul of awards.”
Bell emphasized the competition came from all over the world, not just North America.
“It feels great, but it is something the entire northern part of the province can feel great about,” he said. “We are bringing the taste of Prince George internationally.”
Northern Lights wines have also won 20 medals domestically from the All Canadian Wine Championships since 2017.
For more information on the Sommeliers Choice Awards, click here.
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